Single-door refrigerators generally have a body unit comprising a front frame and a door on whose rear side is arranged a peripheral sealing profile which fits closely against the frame in a closed position and seals an internal space of the refrigerator. In the case of a multi-door refrigerator, in which doors that are attached on opposite sides of the body unit close an identical internal space, a similar sealing effect can be achieved if the opening of the frame is divided into two by a bar, such that each of the doors can completely cover a partial opening. However, this solution is often found to be unsatisfactory because a fixed bar hinders access to the internal space. Two-door refrigerators have therefore been proposed in which the bar is mounted on a first of the doors and, when the first door is in a closed position, supplements the frame of the body unit in such a way that a sealing profile of the second door can fit closely against either the frame or the bar in an essentially continuous manner and thus satisfactorily seal the internal space. However, one problem of these refrigerators is that an external side of the bar is exposed to the flow of surrounding air via a gap between opposing edges of the two doors, with the result that air humidity condenses on the bar if suitable countermeasures are not taken.
It is normal practice to heat the frame of refrigerators in order to prevent the formation of condensed water. The heating usually takes place by means of a refrigerant duct which is installed in the body unit along the frame and is arranged in the refrigerant circuit of the refrigerator between a compressor and a condenser, and through which warm refrigerant therefore flows under high pressure. Additionally installing such a refrigerant duct in the bar which is attached to and moves with one of the doors would incur prohibitive costs, and therefore an electrical heating device is generally provided for the purpose of heating such a bar. In the case of a simple and in particular monoaxial structure of the hinge connecting door and body unit, it is not excessively difficult to route a current supply circuit of the electrical heating device via the hinge, possibly in the form of an electrical cable which runs along the hinge axis between body unit and door, or by using the hinge itself, which is usually made of metal, as an electrical conductor.
In the case of built-in appliances in particular, or more generally in the case of appliances whose doors are faced by decorative panels of any type in order that their appearance can be matched to that of adjacent furniture or appliances, more complicated hinge designs are often required in order to guide the movement of the door in such a way that the opening and closing of the door is not obstructed by adjacent decorative panels. These hinge designs generally have a plurality of axes which are movable in the course of their pivoting movement and are not suitable for the passage of a cable, and furthermore the electrical conductivity of the hinge as a whole is not always guaranteed.